Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are going to take a look
at a couple of examples of the final trials
developmental guns, right before the adoption
of the Model 1907 Roth-Steyr pistol.
This of course was developed and adopted for the
... Austro-Hungarian cavalry in the years just before World War One.
And it was kind of an excruciating and long developmental process
that began with the Theodorovic pistols.
And by the way, I have a separate video on the evolution of the Theodorovic pistols
because they are a real funky looking bunch.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, definitely check out the Theodorovic video.
And then the 1907 that was finally adopted is,
I think, one of the most comfortable early automatic pistols out there, it's a really cool gun.
So what we have here are a 1904 pattern and a 1906 pattern, preceding the 1907 adoption.
So let's take a closer look at exactly what was going on right at the end of this trial sequence.
The final iteration of the real competitive trial for the Austro-Hungarian cavalry pistol
resulted in this pistol being the winner.
Now, ... it beat out competitors from Mannlicher, this would be the Mannlicher 1905.
It beat out ... an early Frommer design,
and then it also beat out two other pistols that were submitted by Roth.
This is an M2, which you can see right there, Model II.
Roth had also submitted an M1 pistol, and an M3 pistol.
The M1 was basically the early pattern of Theodorovic
that ... didn't have a fully shrouded barrel and it was hammer fired,
where the M2 was striker fired.
The M3 was then very similar to this pistol, but submitted in 7.65mm calibre instead of 8mm.
So, the Trials Commission at that point chooses the M2 as the best gun in 8mm.
They like it, and then they all go home.
The Trials Commission is apparently dissolved, and nothing happens for a little while.
And finally when they decide to get their act together,
they form a brand new Trials Commission and hold a new set of trials.
And Roth submits this pistol like, "This is what you guys chose. This is what you wanted, right?"
And the new commission, this is in 1905 or 1906, it says,
"Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's good. But get rid of the safety, we don't like that manual safety."
And so the result is the next iteration of Roth-Krnka M2 without the safety.
And there are also a couple of tiny other changes.
Little change to the shape of the rear sight.
The lanyard ring gets a little bit bigger.
So just for comparison sake, here's our original earlier 1904 pattern rear sight
compared to that larger one.
The lanyard ring starts off as just a ring,
and it goes to a bit of a ... larger staple there.
And of course the safety goes away.
So these are produced. 6/7, documentation says 6,
but this particular gun is number 7, which suggests that there were 7.
Definitely there wouldn't have been more than 10 of these made, whatever the actual tally is.
These went through trials and these were finally approved as good.
Or at least pretty much mostly good.
"This is the winner, this is what we'll take."
And again nothing happens because - Austria-Hungary.
The Trials Commission isn't the one that actually makes the official final decision,
that would be the Emperor Franz Joseph.
And so they have to wait about 18 months
until finally in December of 1907 he formally adopts the Model of 1907 pistol.
And that is what we have here in its final production version.
And you'll notice there are still a few little tiny changes,
so this lanyard staple gets a little bit bigger, the grip shape changes just slightly.
The M2s have this kind of nice, slightly curved, back strap,
where the final adopted M1907 has a straight back strap to it.
And the pattern of the grips changes from checkered to just serrated.
But really those are seriously minor changes, and this is what is ultimately adopted.
A couple of quick little details just to point out, since we have these two guns here.
Like the final production version of the gun,
these half-cock their striker on cycling of the action.
And then pulling the trigger pulls the striker the rest of the way back, and then releases it to fire.
This is in fact the exact same mechanism that the Glock would use 70 years later, give or take.
The slide markings for these guns ... have a Georg Roth sort of initials logo,
and just the word "Patent", and a serial number.
And they were all done in different serial number ranges.
So this is the 1906 model without the manual safety, and it's serial number 7.
Our earlier 1904 pattern with the safety has the same style of markings,
this is serial number 163.
I know number 173 was also of this same style, 1904 pattern with the safety.
But I don't know the total production of that model,
probably somewhere between 10 and 20.
Once the guns were adopted and went into mass production,
that ... top of the ... barrel shroud marking,
changed to be the name of the factory where they were produced.
Which would be one of two different factories, Steyr in Austria, or FÉG in Hungary.
Both factories produced guns, this was the dual monarchy,
and both countries wanted to have their own independent weapons production.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video, I know I really like the 1907 Roth-Steyr.
And it's pretty cool to see a couple of the guns that preceded it,
especially the ... 1904 pattern with the manual safety, that's just neat.
So if you're interested in these sorts of guns,
or any of the other early ... semi-automatic pistols from ... the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
definitely check out Mötz and‎ Schuy's book,
"Vom Ursprung der Selbstladepistole", in my terrible German.
It is a book all in German, but it is fantastically photographed and in excruciating detail,
and is absolutely the best reference source for this type of thing.
So even if you don't read German, the pictures make that book well worth getting.
Thanks for watching.